By PAUL DELANEY
Staff Reporter 

Cardinals collect share of state track berths

 

Last updated 5/24/2018 at 3:35pm

Medical Lake track

Medical Lake junior Jaxyn Farmen qualified for state for a third consecutive year, this time in two events, the long and triple jump.

Medical Lake track team members did pretty much what their head coach thought might happen when it came to qualifying for this week's 1A state championships at Eastern Washington University's Roos Field, May24–26.

Going into last week's District 7 championships at Riverside High School, Gene Blankenship thought his sprinters, including the relay team, plus distance runners and a pair of female field event athletes could punch their tickets to state.

But when the dust - and tempers - settled, the lineup was not exactly as Blankenship envisioned.

The Cardinal contingent is led by junior Jaxyn Farmen who emerged the lone event winner, scoring a sweep of both the long and triple jumps. Farmen launched on a 16-foot, 5-inch win in the long jump, actually tying for the slot with Freeman's Taylor Cobb.

Farmen was joined by teammate, senior Kayla Banch in the triple as the duo finished one-two with respective distances of 35-1 and 34-8.5.

As expected, Riverside's Ben Shaw swept both the 1,600 and 3,200 meter runs. But Medical Lake's Mason Williams' bid was snubbed by a protest and disqualification in the 1,600.

Williams initially finished second in the 1,600, but after further review, the senior was disqualified for an alleged shoving incident with his Deer Park opponent in a Friday race.

"The Deer Park coach said he pushed his athlete," Blankenship said. "There's bumping and pushing that goes on in distance races all the time."

But Blankenship's argument failed to sway any minds of the "games committee" who determined that Williams "used illegal force to maintain his lane" and was disqualified from the race, according to an email from Medical Lake athletics director Justin Blayne.

More strange happenings occurred the following day when the Cardinals' Tyler Pena magically found himself in two state races, the 16 and 32.

Following the protest, Deer Park's Grant Avila was elevated into second place in the 1,600 and headed to state. But when Avila was a no-show at the starting line for the 3,200 on Saturday, he was DQ'd from both events this week.

Blankenship came out with the distance slots he thought were in grasp, only he never expected them to be with the same athlete.

"I got my distance runners in two events - same kid - something we haven't done for a while," Blankenship said. The Cardinals last qualified distance runners to state in 2015 when Domenic Rehm won both the 800 and 1,600-meter titles.

Pena turned a 4 minute, 45.23 second time in the 1,600, behind Shaw's 4:28.41. Shaw outdistanced Pena 9:40.74 to 10:13.63 in the 3,200.

Micah Holmes of Lakeside clocked an 11.17 to top the 11.48 of the Cards' Sandre while Nathan Bergland's 23.02 edged the 23.37 of ML's Taylor.

Medical Lake's 4x100 team of Grant Greenhall, JJ Johnson, Taylor and Sandre crossed the finish line in 43.79 and were second in a tight finish to Lakeside's 43.44.

In the close but no reward category, the Medical Lake girls 4x100 team - Branch, Mayah Eberhardt, Hailey Rombach and Natalie Salinas - were 3/10ths back of Riverside for the state slot.

Admittedly upset following Friday's controversy, Blankenship said he came away from the weekend feeling that "We had a pretty good district (event). Now we've got to see what we can do at state." The Cardinals had 11 personal records on the boys' side and five with the girls.

Winners of the 2014 state 1A title, Blankenship brings no major expectations other than, "Set a personal record in your event or place in the top-eight," which earns the athlete a spot on the podium.

Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.

 

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